[matt]

i have a comercail job, its only 1 big pane of glass and a door

anyways, they asked to not invoice them till it had reached a good amount of money

i waited a while till it reached over 50 quid and thought thats a ok amount for a cheque

i invoice them, i drop it off to the branch, they send it off to Head office

nothing happens for 6 weeks

i send a "reocrded delivery invoice " before my holidays, about 4 weeks ago

nothing

so i phone them

"oh, we have a issue with this invoice, we need to prove you did the windows"

now the windows are done every 5 weeks, and its 5 quid a time, so its been 1 year since i last did the first lot

looks like ive been "knocked", and they were allways good payers at 10 quid a time ( everyother clean )

[Mike_G]

I do this with a lot of my work and have never had a problem.  Who is asking you to prove you did the work the head office or the actual store? If it is head office just pop in the store and ask the manager to contact them and confirm you have done the work.

[WavieDavie]

Don't bother chasing for the money, just write it down to experience.

But I'd also recommend putting the dirt back every five weeks for the next year - see if they don't notice that! Just run a soapy applicator on a pole from top to bottom and don't blade it. I know you're mostly wfp but I'm sure you'll have some trad gear around, won't you?

[Paul Coleman]

i have a comercail job, its only 1 big pane of glass and a door

anyways, they asked to not invoice them till it had reached a good amount of money

i waited a while till it reached over 50 quid and thought thats a ok amount for a cheque

i invoice them, i drop it off to the branch, they send it off to Head office

nothing happens for 6 weeks

i send a "reocrded delivery invoice " before my holidays, about 4 weeks ago

nothing

so i phone them

"oh, we have a issue with this invoice, we need to prove you did the windows"

now the windows are done every 5 weeks, and its 5 quid a time, so its been 1 year since i last did the first lot

looks like ive been "knocked", and they were allways good payers at 10 quid a time ( everyother clean )

Do everything from now on in writing and keep a copy.
Firstly, send them a reminder and explain that you delayed the invoicing at their own request.  Make sure that you set a time limit on receiving payment - say 28 days.  You may want to mention the possibility of legal action on that reminder or you may prefer to hold fire until the following reminder if one is necessary.  Assuming you don't get paid, you can enclose a blank copy of the small claims court paperworkand state that you don't wish to take them to court for the money but you will if they don't cough up.  Mention that it may cost them more if court costs are added.  It may well cost them more than the £50 to turn up at court so there's a fair chance they will settle at that stage.  If they don't settle, taking them to court will cost you a bit to set up.  Whether you wish to follow through on your threat is up to you though.

[steve k]

matt...why do you bother with a £5 job commercial...
lot of hassle for buttons...

[matt]

thanks folks

so the "go and grab manager by neck idea " is a no-no then

steve, its next to another few shops / offices i do, it only takes 2 mins with my WFP

[Nathanael Jones]

You could offer to put a years worth of dirt back on the window, and call it quits? Lol!

[Dean Aspects]

matt...why do you bother with a £5 job commercial...
lot of hassle for buttons...

not everybody has larger well paying jobs like you sometimes the smaller jobs if you get enough together can earn you the same amount
 i suppose you wouldnt get out of bed for a fiver
to be honest your post came over as being a little bit arrogant

[Tosh]

matt...why do you bother with a £5 job commercial...
lot of hassle for buttons...

If it could be done in a few minutes; with lots of other similar priced work next to it; then it's a good job.

As long as you get paid!

[Ladders]

thanks folks

so the "go and grab manager by neck idea " is a no-no then

steve, its next to another few shops / offices i do, it only takes 2 mins with my WFP

Matt if it only takes 2 mins , why worry about this bill, it has taken you a maximum of 24 min,s.
As Steve k said ....why bother with a £5 job

[matt]

thanks folks

so the "go and grab manager by neck idea " is a no-no then

steve, its next to another few shops / offices i do, it only takes 2 mins with my WFP

Matt if it only takes 2 mins , why worry about this bill, it has taken you a maximum of 24 min,s.
As Steve k said ....why bother with a £5 job

manily as its 50 quid thats owed to me, and ive done the work, so in my mind, it would be nice to be paid

[tacky]

hi matt ido  few 5quid jobs but i always get something signed every time  reason being  like u and most window cleaners  been ripped off couple of times  good hunting

[Russell Macdonald]

Hi Matt.

Out of principle i would want my money.

I would call in & ask the Manager to phone & confirm to head office, try & get him to phone in front of you.

Thats his job.

Macc

[s.hughes]

What I would do is for every clean get it signed by someone there on a form that you then photocopy and send off with your invoice.


Steve

[matt]

What I would do is for every clean get it signed by someone there on a form that you then photocopy and send off with your invoice.


Steve

the thing is, they ( aswell as some others ) dont want it done during opening hours, thus i do it at 6.30 / 7.00 in the morning

im not bothering to do it now, just not worth the hastle, though i will get paid

[scrimit2]

I would put a dated and numbered invoice in the door each time, then invoice when, as they said it amounted to a good amount of money, as for getting the money, I would send of a recorded letter stating that the bill is unpaid and if payment is recieved within 28 days the outstanding debt will be passed onto a debt collection agency without further notice. you dont have to follow up on this but, most companies would pay up £50 unless they had good reason to question it, instead of the hassle.

but hopefully as someone says it should be resolved by the people at the store.

also if they are questioning that the windows have been cleaned wouldnt they be really dirty if they hadnt been cleaned for a year? and I know if I didnt do someones windows for a couple of months they would be on the phone asking what was happening.

[NWH]

Yep like scrimit says just put a ticket through the door each time with number of cleans so far.

[ray l]

These jobs can be handy

I would pop in and have a word with the manager and get him to ring head office and confirm windows cleaned.

Then sort out with manager a suitable system for future.

If you cant sort out a handy system for future , then drop the account.

Ray

[Majestic]

I used to do a job for Caps, each time I cleaned the shop windows I had to get a form signed , just to prove I had done the work .
In future Iwould not let it get to the stage that they owed you for that amount of cleans, 2 cleans max

[Ian_Giles]

I guess you have to take it to the store manager, or discuss it with whoever asked you to wait until the bill had built up to a reasonable amount.

AS for £5.00 commercials not being worth it....

a good proportion of my business is built on the back of work like this

On a Monday morning I turn out at 6am and I knock out a minimum of £220 on a variety of shops and offices and pubs in our town centre; prices ranging from £2.50 up to about £15.

I'm home by lunchtime

The only downside being that I have to go back out at 4pm to do a couple more at another village at the end of the day

These early morning shops get me out of bed at 5am every day...a bummer yes?
But it also ensures that I am out and about because I've GOT to be, ergo I am then blending my domestic work seamlessly with my commercial stuff.

Couple hours doing commercial tuesday through to friday and then on to residential.

Even a bad week is a good week now...there may be many downsides to tiny shops, but they are the backbone of my business...

Ian